How Portkey Events Began – The Harry Potter Journey

One of my favourites. A Harry Potter Moving Christmas card, because Christmas cards that don’t move are for Muggles.

I’ve always loved entertaining. Even when I was younger, I loved the idea of sleepovers and movie marathons and themed parties. I love transforming my home into different places. That’s why every year on my birthday, I have to have a theme. One year I had a luau with everyone wearing flowers behind their ears and around their necks. One year I had a circus with clowns and magicians, cotton candy and hotdog stands. One year I had everyone dress in their 90’s best, with beer pong and flip cup and The Backstreet Boys playing in the background. I’ve always looked forward to these parties, and I’ve always managed to make them work even with limited prep time – something I’m quite proud of. Allowing people the opportunity to dress up in things they would never wear in public – it tore down a lot of walls, made people lose their inhibitions (with or without alcohol), and it made for some AWESOME fun.

But I only got to do it once a year.

And although I always had a great time, I never actually got to do the themes that I really really wanted to do, because I didn’t think anyone else would find it fun.

Until I met them. People like me. Potterheads. Adults, who like me, locked Hogwarts away in a secret part of their hearts, and somehow lost the key in the process of growing up. Adults, who like me, were secretly waiting and looking for the key to free their home from its cage. When we met, we discovered the key in each other. We were finally home. And we found that what we left trapped and hidden for so long was more beautiful and more majestic than we remembered. Because this time, we understood more. We knew more. We loved more. And we had each other, to remind one another that even adults need magic too.

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We couldn’t wait to have our first party after we discovered that we all shared the same passion for Harry Potter, which worked out perfectly since Harry’s and JK Rowling’s shared birthday was just a few days away. We decided to do a movie marathon, which turned out to be almost 24 hours of (wonderful) non-stop viewing, and we had a couple of small feasts to celebrate. My dad (an incredible chef), prepared a different English spread for each of our meals, and my mom (an incredible pastry chef) even baked us Hagrid’s famous birthday cake for Harry. We even attempted to make Butterbeer with the limited ingredients available – which was pretty good, if I do say so myself. I also bought us Quidditch shirts because I couldn’t help but have some sort of costume, which we felt mightily cool in, by the way. It was amazing getting to watch the movies again with fellow fans, and getting to share stories and jokes in a language that only Potterheads would understand.

The fun we had that day made us want to have another one. So we scheduled one for Christmas. More time to prepare meant more party details, and I was very happy to provide as much of them as I could.

Above you will see some of the things I made and prepared for the day:

• The paper-mache Sorting Hat was one big experiment, but then again so was everything else.
• The (unused, mind you) chopsticks I stole from a Japanese restaurant (the name of which I will keep secret for my own safety), and I just used a glue gun and paint to make each one different.
• The ties I bought in a department store,
• The letters I printed out on cardstock and parchment.
• The wax seal I got in a shop called “Scribe”, and all I did was pick out the letter H, and red wax. Pretty easy

Everyone even came in full costume [As seen in the photo below, and in the video at the top] That was the most exciting part for me. Everyone in full Hogwarts gear running around, waving their wands and muttering screaming spells with magic and laughter in their eyes.

We only watched the first and the last movies that day, so we could have more time to talk, and laugh, and share “What Harry means to me” stories. It. was. EPIC.

That was the day in fact, that encouraged me to do other themed parties for my friends who are fellow fans of stuff like The Lord of the Rings, Pixar, and Disney [all of which I will write about in separate posts]. Those successful parties in turn, convinced me that maybe I could do something with my growing passion. Maybe I could do something with the love I have for throwing crazy themed parties. So I did.

And Portkey Events Management was born.

This was the first Portkey Events party I did for my friends. It was a trial of sorts, to see what would work with an actual Harry Potter party with different sets. My advantage – knowing the books and movies like the back of my hand.

 

 

It was brilliant. We did another 24-hour-no-sleep movie marathon, with bigger feasts, and just more of everything. More props, more sets, more costumes, even more friends. It felt right. It felt perfect.

The more I practised and researched (which was SO MUCH FUN – since all I needed to do was watch the movies over and over again), the more ideas I had, and the more props and sets I learned how to do.

Like these wands for example. From using restaurant chopsticks to wooden dowels – I think that’s a pretty good step in the right direction.

 

“He must have known I’d want to leave you.”
“No, he must have known you would always want to come back.”

– JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 

At every single one of these parties, I learned something new about myself. Things that I never would have associated with coming back to my childhood favourites. The most important lesson of all I think, is that I learned how to be myself. I learned that embracing who you are, and embracing your true passions however different, can lead to wondrous things.

As you can see, the love for Harry Potter is impalpable. And so is the love for making people happy.

It is my goal to always create the most authentic, and most beautiful settings for clients, no matter what theme they choose.

If you’re interested in throwing an epic party, send us a message on Facebook, or email us at porkeyevents@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you. We’re a new company, but we’re ready to help make your dreams come true.

Also, be sure to check in on our social media accounts to follow all our exciting events!

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